Critics compare figure of famous soprano erected in Greek capital to an Oscar statuette
Drama in life, drama in posterity. For Maria Callas, Greece’s greatest diva, there is, even 44 years after her death, no let up from the artistic wrangling that was her lot.
But this time the uproar is focused on a statue erected at the foot of the ancient Acropolis, opposite the Roman theatre where the world-renowned opera singer made her debut.
Continue reading...The regime in Tehran says discussions will resume ‘soon’, but Israel has already ‘greatly accelerated’ plans for military action
Coordinated warnings last week from the US, Israel and the EU that “time is short” to revive an agreement curbing Iran’s nuclear activities raise a disturbing question: what will opposing governments do if, as seems likely, Tehran’s hardline regime continues to drag its feet while accumulating the wherewithal to build a nuclear weapon?
Israel’s leaders, as usual, are not mincing words. “Every day that passes, every delay in the negotiations, brings Iran closer to a nuclear bomb. If a terror regime is going to acquire a nuclear weapon, we must act. We must make clear that the civilised world won’t allow it,” said foreign minister Yair Lapid.
Continue reading...Although travelers’ hissy fits are nothing new, incidences of bad behavior have spiked amid the tense landscape of Covid-19
Alexander Clark had only just boarded the Los Angeles-bound United airliner when the man seated behind him became incensed. As Clark tells it, a flight attendant had repeatedly asked the passenger to alternately stop talking on his phone or don a face mask when, after the fourth ask, the passenger snapped.
“I will find your name, date of birth, and address! I will know your social security number before I get off this plane!” yelled the passenger, who appeared to be in his 30s. He leapt to his feet mid-shout, spittle arcing from his maskless mouth, and stomped over to the male flight attendant.
Continue reading...Energy firm and director Alexander Temerko have given £1.1m between them to Conservatives
French mayors and residents along the Normandy coast are campaigning to block a project for a cross-Channel electricity cable backed by a Ukrainian-born businessman who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to the Conservative party.
Kwasi Kwarteng, Britain’s business secretary, is due to decide this week on whether to give the go-ahead to a £1.2bn project for the 148-mile cable between Normandy and Hampshire. The firm says the link, which will run through Portsmouth, could supply up to 5% of Britain’s electricity needs.
Continue reading...Five children were among group of 16 US citizens and one Canadian abducted by gang members after orphanage visit
A group of 17 missionaries, including five children, have been kidnapped by an armed criminal gang in Haiti.
The group – 16 Americans and one Canadian citizen – were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a statement from the Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries, which supports 9,000 children in Haitian schools and sent out a message asking supporters to pray for its members.
Continue reading...With just months to go before presidential polls, the centre-right Les Républicains, under pressure from both flanks, are scrambling for a suitable candidate
Six months before a presidential election and France’s mainstream right finds itself squeezed – between the hammer and the anvil as they say here – without a candidate and facing an existential threat from either side.
On one flank are the far-right Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, a polarising television pundit who wants to talk about immigration, identity and Islam – the three i’s – and ban “non-French” names such as Mohamed.
Continue reading...Alex Saab, an ally of president Nicolás Maduro, was extradited to face money laundering charges after a 16-month legal battle
Venezuela’s government is halting negotiations with its opponents in retaliation for the extradition to the US of a close ally of president Nicolás Maduro, who prosecutors believe could be the most significant witness ever about corruption in the South American country.
Jorge Rodríguez, who has been heading the government’s delegation, said his team wouldn’t travel to Mexico City for the next scheduled round of negotiations.
Continue reading...Former UK prime minister says operation could be under way within days if world leaders signed off
More than 100,000 lives can be saved in Africa by undertaking the emergency airlift of 240m unused vaccines in the next fortnight, Gordon Brown has urged.
The former prime minister called on a group of rich nations to back “the biggest peacetime public policy decision” by supporting an October airlift that would see unused vaccines handed to parts of the global south struggling the most.
Continue reading...The 80-strong bloat, originally part of the Colombian drug lord’s estate, present an environmental concern as an invasive species
A group of rampant hippopotamuses, introduced by the late Colombia drug lord Pablo Escobar to his private zoo, are being sterilized by the country’s wildlife services, after mounting concern that the 80-strong herd presented a potential environmental disaster as an invasive species.
The so-called “cocaine hippos”, whose number has more than doubled since 2012, were sterilized after worries have mounted over their environmental impact, including a threat to human safety.
Continue reading...Dozens of temples attacked over claims a Qur’an was desecrated
Deadly communal violence has broken out in Bangladesh after allegations of the desecration of an Islamic holy book led to dozens of Hindu temples being attacked and police opening fire on a crowd, leaving at least six people dead.
The government deployed paramilitary troops to 22 districts after religious tensions and violence broke out in the city of Cumilla on Wednesday, resulting in the deaths of four Hindus. On Friday, further communal violence erupted in the capital, Dhaka, as well as the southern town of Begumganj, with two more Hindus killed in the unrest.
Continue reading...Celebrities encourage turnout as response surpasses Jacinda Ardern’s call to administer 100,000 shots
New Zealand’s “Super Saturday” of Covid vaccinations has proved a hit, with more than 2.5% of the population responding to the call to get jabbed on a single day.
The prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, set an ambitious goal of administering 100,000 shots on the day, aiming to push vaccination rates towards her 90% goal.
Continue reading...Former health secretary will no longer become special envoy for UN’s economic commission for Africa
Matt Hancock, the former UK health secretary, will no longer become a special envoy for the United Nations, after the job offer was withdrawn.
Hancock said on Tuesday he was “honoured” to be working with the UN’s economic commission for Africa (UNECA) to help the continent recover from the pandemic.
Continue reading...US health officials are setting the stage for a national Covid-19 vaccination campaign for younger children, inviting state officials to order doses before the shots are authorized.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is currently being given to people as young as 12 in the US. Over the next three weeks, federal officials plan to discuss making smaller-dose versions available to the nation’s 28 million children between the ages of five and 11.
Continue reading...Exclusion of junta chief Min Aung Hlaing ‘necessary decision to uphold Asean’s credibility’
South-east Asian countries will invite a non-political representative from Myanmar to a regional summit this month, delivering an unprecedented snub to the military leader who led a coup against an elected civilian government in February.
The decision taken by foreign ministers from the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), at an emergency meeting on Friday night, marks a rare bold step for the consensus-driven bloc, which has traditionally favoured a policy of engagement and non-interference.
Continue reading...Rescuers used 24in snake pole to remove snakes preparing to hibernate from mountainside home in Santa Rosa
Al Wolf is used to clearing one or two snakes from under houses but recently was called by a woman who said she had seen rattlesnakes scurry under her northern California house and was surprised to find more than 90 rattlesnakes getting ready to hibernate.
Wolf, director of Sonoma County Reptile Rescue, said he crawled under the mountainside home in Santa Rosa and found a rattlesnake right away, then another and another. He got out from under the house, grabbed two buckets, put on long, safety gloves, and went back in.
Continue reading...Spacecraft with name inspired by a skeleton and the Beatles, and with lab-grown gems, starts 12-year quest
A Nasa spacecraft named Lucy has rocketed into the sky with diamonds on a 12-year quest to explore eight asteroids.
Seven of the mysterious space rocks are among swarms of asteroids sharing Jupiter’s orbit, thought to be the pristine leftovers of planetary formation.
Continue reading...Police say tourists who had been staying in village of Qerret were aged between 31 and 60 years old
Four Russian tourists have been found dead at a beach resort in western Albania, police have said.
Albanian police issued a statement on Saturday saying the tourists were found asphyxiated in a hotel sauna in the village of Qerret late on Friday.
Continue reading...Court documents shed new light on Yasir al-Rumayyan’s relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
Yasir al-Rumayyan, the new non-executive chairman of Newcastle United, was involved in a controversial “anti-corruption” campaign in Saudi Arabia that included the transfer of assets on behalf of the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
Details of Rumayyan’s role – including the transfer of a charter jet company to the Public Investment Fund (PIF), where he serves as governor – are contained in court documents that shed light on his relationship with Prince Mohammed.
Continue reading...The government is using an array of sweeteners, gimmicks and incentives to raise inoculation rates, including turning a 787 Dreamliner into a vaccination clinic
You can do it in the cabin of a Dreamliner plane. You can do it at a race track. You can even do it in a fast food drive-through queue.
New Zealand’s government is employing a host of increasingly weird and wonderful strategies, gimmicks and sweeteners in a bid to get the last 20% of its eligible population inoculated against Covid-19.
Continue reading...The gunman who killed 14 students and three staff members at a Parkland, Florida, high school will plead guilty to their murders, his attorneys said Friday, bringing some closure to a south Florida community more than three years after an attack that sparked a nationwide movement for gun control.
The guilty plea would set up a penalty phase where Nikolas Cruz, 23, would be fighting against the death penalty and hoping for life without parole.
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